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Thursday, March 26, 2009

Heroes 3X20: Cold Snap

Wesley Snipes: Apocalyptic PaintingI completely overlooked this one last week: when Nathan and Matt managed to defuse the bomb with which Danko had saddled Parkman, it averted the future Matt had painted of Washington blowing up. So apparently, if a future painting shows Hiro'sfrickin' "destiny," that future is unavoidable, but if a painting shows a main character blowing up, than the future can be changed.

Wesley Snipes: Tracy's escapeUm, why didn't she (or at least Mohinder and Parkman) wake up more of the people in Danko's prison? Extra people would have it made it easier for everyone to escape, and it wouldn't have made the three of them seem like selfish dicks.Harrison Ford: JaniceHey, that appearance wasn't so bad after all. There's still plenty of things I'd rather see brought back before Janice, but as long as Daphne's death doesn't lead Parkman back to her, that was fine.

Tommy Lee Jones: The EclipseMentioning that Baby Parkman started using his power after the last eclipse has me divided: on the one hand, I appreciate the show making a point of reminding us about this fairly critical piece of show mythology.

On the other hand, I really don't want to be reminded of that pointless two-parter from the last volume and the way it managed to completely waste any opportunity to explore that mythology.

Harrison Ford: Hiro's powerSay what you will about Baby Touch And Go's power (personally, I liked it until I started to think about it for a moment, at which point I realized it made very little sense and is terribly hard to quantify) but I appreciate the fact that when Hiro regained his power, the writers made it immediately clear how and in what capacity he did so, instead of leaving it unexplained except through some vague emotional babbling (alaSylar's empathy powers last season, or his ability to hang onto telekinesis after his original power set was otherwise wiped out).

Tommy Lee Jones: Comedic HiroI hate that Hiro has basically devolved solely into comic relief. His antics at the beginning of the episode, especially considering they directly followed the reveal of Danko's "prison," did not amuse me at all.

Yet at the same time, I couldn't help but laugh when Hiro stopped time, suited up the baby and carried Ando 12 miles in a wheelbarrow to the bus station. I hated myself for laughing, but I did.

Harrison Ford: Peter rescuing his momMrs. Teebore said she likes Peter best when he manages to strike the right balance between an emo nurse who helped a dying old man and a badass, and the scene in which he came to his mom's rescue was exactly that: Peter, the badassmomma's boy. At first, I figured it was Nathan, and which point I wouldn't have been too impressed (considering it's his fault she's in this predicament). When it turned out to be Peter, I just went "aw..."

Wesley Snipes: Peter rescuing his momAt the same time, why, exactly, did Peter wait until the doors opened, revealing himself, to scoop her up and fly away? And how did he get into the elevator shaft? Normally, I'd chalk it up to dramatic license and roll with it (and I still might; I DID really like that scene) but Heroes seems to ask us to do that a lot more than other shows.

Wesley Snipes: The winking eyeWait, so is Tracy going to somehow pull her shattered, frozen pieces back together, like the T-1000? Cuz I don't think her power should work that way. If not, why show her frozen eye winking? I know that Ali Larter isn't "off" the show, but the other triplet, Barbara, is still out there somewhere, so maybe she'll simply be playing another character from now on? Once again, Heroes leaves us wondering not if a character is alive or dead, but rather whether we're supposed to be wondering at all. And leaving out that winking eye would have solved the problem: without it, we assume Tracy's dead. If it turns out she isn't, so be it, but at least we'd know we're supposed to THINK she's dead. Right now, I don't know what to think.Harrison Ford: Daphne's deathUnlike her perceived death in the second episode of the volume, this time it was clear that Daphne is, in fact, dead. Furthermore, she was given a touching sendoff, the likes of which no other dead character on this show has ever received (remember when Nikki died at the hands of murderous comic book thieves?). One has to wonder why she was brought back just to die, but at least that death was well done.

Wesley Snipes: Daphne's deadOf course, the sendoff would have been more touching if I hadn't been so pissed they were actually killing Daphne off. Seriously, Show? Not only is she the most attractive character on the show, she's the only one who seems to enjoy using her power instead of whining and being emo about it (well, her and Hiro, but he's got his own problems). Frankly, the show needs more characters like her, characters that react to their powers positively and realistically, and it shouldn't be killing off the few it has.

Tommy Lee Jones: Bryan Fuller's returnThis episode marked Bryan Fuller's much ballyhooed return to Heroes as a writer. The episode itself was certainly no "Company Man" or even much of a game changer, but it wasn't terrible, either. Rather, it fit right in with the other episodes so far this volume: steadily improving (and much better than last volume's muddled mess on the whole) but still not without its flaws.

Finally, an addendum to one of my comments regarding last week's episode. I griped a bit (and believe me, compared to some on the Internet, my gripes were fairly benign) about the stereotypical portrayal of customers in the comic shop at which Claire gained employment, based largely on the fact that, while I agree those stereotypes do exist, I have yet to encounter them in the comic shop I frequent.

Well, after speaking with two of the employees at that shop last week about that episode, it turns out I need to do my shopping on new comic book Wednesdays, as they are out in full force then, even at my clean, bright, well-organized and well-staffed comic shop. Or I need to shop whenever one of the female employees is working, so I can see the men either shy away from her in fear or overspend in an attempt to impress her.

Either way, while I still bristle a bit about how the stereotype suggests we're all like that, that is the inherent nature of all stereotypes, and it turns out that not even my shop is immune to it, so perhaps I was a bit too hard on the show in that regard.